human being, whether good or bad, shall fail to hear that sound. And the stormy ocean, whose waves have sung the requiem of many a gallant sailor; and battle-fields: and sand-drifts in the desert, shall all open and disclose their dead; and the very dust beneath our feet shall become animate; and a sight will be witnessed at that day, I solemnly believe, more magnificent, stupendous, and impressive, than when God called worlds out of nothing into being, and said, "Let there be light, and there was light." I have a strong presentiment or impression, that each individual called at that day will hear his name. When Jesus raised Lazarus, he said "Lazarus, come forth." And there is something very beautiful in the thought, that the name that was given you in baptism shall be heard as an under-tone in the sound of the resurrection-trumpet; and that you personally will be addressed, and that you personally will feel this mortal put on immortality, and this corruptible incorruptibility; leaving behind you in the grave only what contaminated and defiled; and appearing no more in the clinging garments of corruption, but in bridal robes, in coronation dress, in the shining white raiment, washed and made clean in the blood of the Lamb.

When is the time of this resurrection? We are told Christ shall descend with a shout, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. The time of it is when Christ comes. When that shall be, the day and the hour knoweth no man. But we are told by the blessed Saviour that we are not to overlook, nor to be insensible to the signs of the age in which we live. Most people feel-you cannot fail reading it in every journal, hearing it in every con

versation, noticing it in books-that we live in an age unprecedented for its intensity, its triumphs, its energy, and in some respects for its disintegration and dislocation in all its moral, political, and social aspects. Now I do not exaggerate, I am sure, when I say that there has been compressed into the last ten years more than has been compressed into the last two hundred years; and that things that used to take centuries to ripen in, are now developed, and ripened, and finished in a week, a month, or a single year. Wars, rumors of wars, arc the features of the day. Ask the most thinking men-do not believe a preacher, who knows nothing of political and national topics-but ask the most thinking men, and they will tell you, that all Europe at this moment heaves with hidden fires; that soon, and I have no doubt sooner than most think, the next shock of the great earthquake of 1848 will be felt, and the soil of Europe trembles beneath the beat of the feet of millions; and men's hearts literally fail them for fear of the things that are coming on the earth. Take the last few years-dislocation of commerce, dislocation of party, disorganization of churches; kings seated, many of them on the continent of Europe, on their thrones, and doubting how long they will be the occupants of them; the nations, as if stored with combustible matter, and men afraid to tread too harshly, lest the spark be struck that will explode them; everything indicating just that very portrait which I sketched to you in 1847 and 1848 in lectures in Exeter Hall, which I have often tried to tell you since; and every one of the statements of which you will find, if you will look over them, are being fulfilled in what is passing before you̟.

But what should all this be to us? convulsed; suppose kingdoms like

Suppose the earth be ships on a tempestu

ous ocean be dashed against each other, or scattered like drift-wood upon its waves; suppose the kings of the earth tremble; suppose wars and rumors of wars multiply, till England's firesides become each a scene of weeping and of sorrow, we can yet fall back on the magnificent conviction, "The Lord reigneth." The severest storm is nearest the everlasting calm; and the time of greatest trouble nearest the resurrection, and the restoration of all that believe in and love the Lord Jesus Christ. The prophet, from whom I have taken the subject of these thoughts, tells us in fact, that at this very time when those that sleep in their graves shall awake-"shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people"-that is, the Jews-"shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book." And then at that time "many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." If we be Christians, however much we may grieve over the sorrows and the sufferings of others, we have only for ourselves the blessed hope, the glorious prospect of immortality and happiness; where there shall be no more sin, nor shame, nor sorrow, nor disappointment, nor grief, nor sickness, nor disease; but all things shall be made new. What shall be the character of these bodies that shall be raised at that day? They will be as they are now—imperfection, the traces of disease and sin excepted. I be

lieve that all that constitutes individuality, all that constitutes idiosyncrasy, all that we know as that which is the man, will be raised. I admit what physiologists state -that every seven years every particle in our body is dislodged; I admit that fully-but yet they must admit, what common sense sees, that the man that you knew twenty years ago looks the same man still. His hair may be whitened, the wrinkles on his face may be multiplied; the furrows on his brow as if they were trying to crowd his history into that forehead, may seem closer and compacter together-but still, some way or another, there is the man; there remains something that is his idiosyncrasy, and that constitutes identity. Well! that shall be raised ; all imperfection, all disease, all sin, all traces of decay, eliminated and left behind; and all that is requisite to constitute identity so complete, that the mother shall know the babe she lost in infancy, the father the child, the child the parent, the brother the sister, and the sister the brother; all shall know each other. Is there not also some suggestive analogy here? Do we not see everything in this world striving after perfection? We constantly see, as we look around us, that our earth, just like ourselves, is under a repressive curse. What does the apostle say? "All creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting to be delivered; waiting for the adoption of the sons of God; to wit, the redemption of the body." Here is his statement that all creation groans and travails. Why? It is under a repressive curse; and I believe that what we see now in this earth, in ourselves, in flower, in tree, a fruit, is only a dim earnest of the beauty and magnificence that will be when that repressive curse shall

be withdrawn. God sometimes gives to man comforting prefigurations of what will be. For instance, who would believe that the exquisite rose in the garden, the loveliest and the most fragrant flower in it, is simply the common wild hedge-rose, cultivated by man till it attains that excellence! What does that prove? That there are in that wild hedge-rose possibilities of beauty repressed, that man can in some slight degree bring out, but which under millennial suns will burst into a beauty and magnificence that eye hath not seen, and that man has never before conceived. So we see in this world of ours everything at this moment striving after perfection; the rock seeking to culminate in the exquisite and beautiful crystal; the tree bursting into the fragrant and beautiful blossom; all things striving after and stretching up to a perfection—as if nature had in her heart, some strong presentiment of a coming restoration, and tried to anticipate the era by now and then letting forth signs of the buried treasures that are in her bosom. And what a beautiful orb will this be, and how blest its inhabitants, when all sin shall flee like a shadow, and the light of an unsetting sun shall shine on it, or rather the light of that world which has no need of the sun, but where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the glory of it! What a bright and glorious orb, and what a happy and blessed tenantry will occupy it for ever! I need not tell you that all this points to a conclusion I have tried before to establish-that the earth is redeemed just as well as man's body. I believe in a resurrection of this globe of ours just as I do in the resurrection of the body; and it is on the same ground that we have no more reason to s ppose that the devil shall get